


Vaquero

by Vandereer



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, character introspection or whatever, jesse mccree wears a turtleneck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 03:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10823079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vandereer/pseuds/Vandereer
Summary: A confrontation with an old mentor leads McCree to make a deadly mistake.You're gonna carry that weight.edit: PEACEKEEPER. IT'S CALLED THE PEACEKEEPER. This is my first fanfic (that I've finished anyway), please don't judge it too hard.





	Vaquero

 Jesse McCree was running for his life.

Black smoke followed him around every corner, every turn he took. It was like a nightmare, but at least in nightmares you have to wake up eventually.

He was supposed to be out of danger in Dorado, it was a place he could run and hide when the heat was on, but someone had found him.

Jesse hopped from roof to roof, trying to out-maneuver whoever or whatever it was that was chasing him. The night market was up tonight, the town full of music, food, families. Not the place for a gunfight. He pulled his revolver out and aimed. Over the moonlit rooftops of the small Mexican city he could barely make out his pursuer. It seemed to form and dissolve before his eyes. He desperately shot at it, aiming for the head, but it was a waste of time. A white mask flew towards him and he cried out as it knocked him from the roof.

_“SHIIIIIIT!”_

He fell with a crash, straight into a food stall selling piping-hot elotes.

He rubbed the back of his head and looked up at the startled vendor, fumbling for the words in Spanish. Corn cobs and sauce littered the ground.

“I can uh, I can pay for that. Tomas tarjetas de credito?”

“Eh! Eso es Jesse McCree! Polícia!” A man pointed and shouted, soon panic and flashes of recognition rippled through the night-market.

“¿Es ese maldito vaquero?”

“Well mierda” Jesse mumbled, getting up and limp-running away. Nothing like being sleepy and happily drunk when a smoke-monster bursts into the bar and decides it wants you dead.

Wails of sirens followed him as he ducked down a quiet side-street. A police cruiser hummed to a halt ahead of him and blocked his escape.

As the polícia got out and pointed their guns at him he wanted to warn them, tell them what they were dealing with. He couldn’t for two reasons, one was that his Spanish wasn’t good enough, and two because it was already here.

The smoke descended behind them, deathly quiet, and formed into a man. He wore what looked like a long, black trench coat and a white mask in the shape of a bird skull. He grabbed two of the police officers by their heads and dashed them together.

_“STAY OUT OF THIS, HE’S MINE!”_

The rasping voice sent chills down Jesse’s spine, it sounded like someone using one of those voice filters. It told him immediately that they had something to hide.

“Unlucky for you, I’m a better shot when I’m drunk anyway!” he said with a smirk.

The tight alleyway left him with nowhere to run, though close-quarters combat was his specialty anyway. He quickly aimed and fired a quick succession of shots and somehow missed every one.

“How in the hell…?”

The blackness rushed towards him and hit him with a wave of cold. Dorado was warm all year round and suddenly it felt like winter. The smoke re-formed into a solid person again and gave him a hell of a backhand across the face. He dropped his gun and fell to the floor like a sack of coal. A foot stomped on his neck and kept him pinned to the ground.

_“I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”_

“Who the hell’re you?!” Jesse grunted, straining to keep the pressure off his throat.

_“Some things are better left unsaid.”_

The figure pulled a shotgun and pointed it at his head. There was nothing for it but to pull a flashbang from his belt and throw it at the white mask.

The light and noise blinded and deafened him just as much as his foe. When he felt the foot shift off his neck he pushed it off and scrambled away. He hopped over the downed police officers and ran blindly down the street, all he could hear was dying ear cells and muffled, enraged shouting from behind him.

He felt like he was halfway down the road when he smacked into something solid and tumbled again, as clumsy as a toddler.

“McCree, mister McCree? Can you hear me?”

A face materialized in front of him, a dark face with big yellow eyes hidden behind a pair of spectacles. Anyone else would think they had drank some bad moonshine if they saw a gorilla talking to them, but Jesse recognized the face of his old colleague.

“Winston? What the heck’re you doin’ here?”

“There’s no time, come on now. We’re taking you somewhere safe.”

A huge hand pulled him up and set him back down on the ground where he swayed dizzily, vision still blurry and flashing slightly.

“Wins’ I’m FINE! Good lord, I’ve gotten outta fixes way worse’n this!”

Winston’s huge nostrils wiggled as he sniffed the top of his head.

“You stink of alcohol, are you... drunk?”

“Well he attacked me when I was jus’ leavin’ the bar! Who is that guy anyway?”

Winston looked awkward and pushed up his glasses. He picked up Jesse’s hat and popped it back on his head; he hadn’t even noticed it had fallen off.

“Just come with me, we don’t want to attract any more attention than we already have.”

Winston started knuckling away, holding his arm in an attempt to keep him steady. Jesse started digging in his heels.

“No man, I’m stayin’ here!”

“Do I have to carry you? Because that would be quite embarrassing for both us.”

Jesse huffed, self-aware enough to realize that he was standing in front of him covered in butter and hot sauce from the elotes. Maybe being carried by Winston wouldn’t be the best way to top off his evening.

“Angela and I will explain everything we know so far. You’re in very real danger.”

 _Angie? Aw shit._ Jesse thought. _Just when I’m covered in sour cream and smellin’ like a tequila bar laundry hamper._

Winston carefully led him away from the chaos and through some back alleys, checking around each corner to make sure no curious bystanders were lurking. He led Jesse down to the beach, keeping a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t stumble and break an ankle on the rocks. A shiny white little airship was cleverly concealed behind some rocks.

“Oh great, one of those ships. You tryin’ to make me sick?” Jesse grumbled.

He got an eye roll out of the big guy, and a gentle shove into the opening door. Winston moved to the control pad and sat down, carefully prodding the keys with his massive fingers.

“I’m taking you to a temporary base we’ve secured in Virginia. Hopefully it will be a while before… Well, just sit down and strap in.”

Jesse did as he was instructed and rested his head against the back of the seat. As the ship took off and sped them north, his still-drunk brain tried to make sense out of the night’s events. Someone wanted him dead, he didn’t think there was anyone alive who even knew where to find him. And yet both the mystery smoke guy and The Ghost of Overwatch Past had found him in one night.

Something was familiar about his attacker, something just on the edge of his memory. He tried to search for it, something about that voice…

_God my head hurts._

He closed his eyes, something about the gun he had used was familiar too, but before he could think anymore he fell asleep.

*

“McCree wake up, we’re almost there.”

Jesse grunted awake, his head resting on his chest in the ‘man sleeping in public because he’s too old to give a shit’ way. Drool had pooled down his front and he wiped it away, hoping Winston hadn’t noticed. A pearly pink-and-blue sunrise glowed from the window. When the aircraft banked he could just make out the frosty farmlands of Virginia below. It was pretty, but marred by the hangover looming in his near future.

They landed in a low-key zone away from the flight paths near Washington DC, a scrap of wasteland where no-one would notice a small aircraft. Their “base” was little more than an old farmhouse and barn. As the door opened he recognized the slender figure waiting outside and waving them in.

He walked towards Angela with more than a little trepidation, he hadn’t seen the doctor in almost a decade. As he put weight on his ankle it hurt like a son of a bitch, he had to steady himself on Winston’s bulky shoulder.

She had barely aged a day since the last time he saw her, pale skin with barely a wrinkle to be seen. Her hair was tied up in a tight no-nonsense ponytail. She wore a white lab coat and a simple grey shirt and black pants, like she had been working.

“Willkommen zurück Winston! Oh my goodness Jesse…” Dr Ziegler said, looking him over with her blue eyes going wide. “You’re injured?”

“Nah doc I’m fine, jus’ a few bumps.” He said with an awkward grin. He didn’t make a good case for himself dangling off Winston like a coat hanger.

“Winston please bring him to my exam table and find him a change of clothes. I believe there’s some in the old dresser upstairs.”

“Of course doctor.”

The farmhouse was mostly bare except for a few old couches, Winston and Angela’s equipment lying around, and of course enough peanut butter jars to feed a small African village for a month. A little doctor’s office was set up in an old dining room. A bay window looked out over frosty farmland.

Jesse gasped again as he was walked through the house. Adrenaline was a powerful drug on its own, but combined with alcohol he had barely felt where he had been hurt the night before. Winston dumped him on the exam table and soon Angela came in, smiling gently and bustling around him to get supplies ready.

“So, you’ve had an eventful night by the sounds of it.” She said.

“Eventful? Yeah that’s a good description alright.”

He cried out with barely restrained swearing as Angela touched his ankle through his boot.

“My word, it must be bad. Let me see what I can do, hold still now.”

Angela took his boot off as gently as possible, but it still caused shards of agony to crawl their way up his leg. His ankle was a swollen, red mess. She took out a bandage and started wrapping it up. He grit his teeth trying to not cry out again.

“Take your chest piece and shirt off please," she said once she tied off the bandage.

_Every goddamn time._

“Angie, please don’t make me take my clothes off.”

“It’s a bad idea to ignore the orders of a doctor Jesse.” She gave him a lethal stare until he sighed and started undressing.

She took his heartbeat, pulse and other things he wondered were actually necessary, then started patching up a bullet graze on his upper arm he didn’t even remember receiving. He shivered.

_Why are doctor’s hands always so damn cold?_

“Well, you got off lightly it seems. This mercenary has been systematically taking out anyone even remotely related to Overwatch the past few months.” Angela said, in an oddly conversational way.

“And I was next on his Christmas Card List? Is that why you sent the big guy to come n’ get me?”

“Yes Jesse. This is no laughing matter.”

She stitched up the graze in her usual business-like way, quickly but with a practiced grace. Once his arm was bound up in gauze, she patted his arm and smiled.

“All done. You should really take better care of yourself.”

He rolled his eyes, just waiting for the age-old lecture on his smoking and drinking habits while she was at it.

The door thumped open and Winston burst in with a pile of fresh clothes. He tossed them onto the exam table and grinned with those massive teeth.

“It seems like you have lucked out!”

Jesse eyed the clothes he had been given with distaste. A rather plain beige sweater and brown work pants awaited him.

“A turtleneck, really?” Jesse said, with a flat stare.

“Don’t be picky, the weather reports say it will be 30 degrees tonight and there’s no heating.” Winston said, jabbing a meaty finger at his chest. Jesse sighed and mooched out of the room to change in peace.

*

Winston had built a fire in the living room of the little farmhouse while Jesse got into the fresh clothes. As much as he didn’t care for sweaters he was soon glad of the warmth. Angela fetched him something to prop up his ankle on as he sat on a saggy couch.

“Now, to business.” Winston said, squashing himself onto the other couch while Angela sat down next to Jesse. “I’ve already made contact with Oxton, Wilhelm, Lindholm. But it seems when I issued the recall signal you chose to ignore it.”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly at the big guy’s disapproving look.

“I think what Winston means is that we were worried about you.” Angela said. “When you didn’t respond we feared the worst.”

“Well sorry but I was doin’ my own thing, I’m a busy man you know.” Jesse said with a shrug.

Now he was getting disapproving looks from both sides.

The truth was, he hadn’t responded to the recall because he hadn’t wanted to. He had spent seven years muddling along happy enough without them, getting cash for odd jobs (as he called them) and not thinking about anything he didn’t want to think about. Now they were forcing him to remember it all.

“It’s a good thing I came looking for you when I did, you could have easily been killed.” Winston said. It took a lot to get Jesse angry, but the big guy was really pushing it. Jesse scowled.

“Hey I can handle myself! Even if I was drunk as a skunk.”

“As you keep insisting.”

“God damn you two, I’m a grown man! I don’t need a babysitter and if I was gonna die maybe you should’ve just left me to it!” He winced as he realized he was shouting. Awkward silence filled the room and Angela was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Jesse are you okay?” she said. He cradled his forehead in his fingers and squeezed his temples.

“I just wanted to be left alone. Why’d you hafta… god damn it.”

“I’m sorry, but if someone is hunting Overwatch agents we’re all in danger. We need to stick together.” Angela said.  She closed her eyes, looking like she was in pain.

"This is all my doing."

"What’re you talking about?" Jesse said. He decided he needed a smoke and pulled out a half-smoked cigar from the previous night. Winston and Angela gave each other a look and he scowled again.

“You two are makin’ me feel pretty stupid about now.”

"Jesse there's something you need to know.” Angela said.  “He- Reaper, used to be more formerly known as ‘Gabriel Reyes’"

He gaped so hard his cigar dropped out of his mouth and onto his pant leg.

"No, you can’t mean- that _thing_ is Reyes?"

Angela nodded and bowed her head, looking guilty.

"I tried to bring him back, after the HQ was destroyed. I thought I could... Everything was spiraling and I just wanted to take some control. I thought I could save him."

Before she put her face in her hands he could see her blue eyes swimming with tears.

_So the bastard destroyed Overwatch and now he wants revenge from beyond the grave. That old fart never could let things go._

“Son of a bitch.” Jesse muttered.

“Jesse whatever your feelings are, at least spend a few weeks here while you recover. We can share information and catch up.” Angela said. Jesse smiled faintly and chuffed.

“Sorry, but if I spend more than a few days here I’ll lose my mind.” Jesse got up like his ankle wasn’t causing him a certain amount of agony and stretched nonchalantly.

“McCree please!” Winston said “You’re injured and I insist that you-“

"Welp, it's a good thing I'm not Overwatch anymore” Jesse said “I don't have to do a damn thing you tell me to.”

He limped out of the cozy room into the cold, bare hallway. As he went upstairs to steal a bed, he heard Winston talking quietly.

“Well, he hasn’t changed much.”

*

As he lay in the shabby bed he found, he couldn’t even think of sleep. He couldn't think of anything that had made him so damn angry in quite some time. He never took things personally, he didn't even have the ability to take things personally. But the mention of Reyes’ name had sent him down a rabbit hole of bad memories.

He had grown up being bounced between different foster families. A handful as a child had turned into a cantankerous teenager that no-one on Earth seemed to want. He had found a home with the Deadlock gang, found he had a talent for killing, stealing and being a shithead in general. His life with them had been pretty great for what it was, until Overwatch had come for them. The Deadlocks savage way of fighting had been no matter for the organized precision of the shiny blue armored bastards. The fight barely lasted an hour, he was lucky to not have been killed with Jack Morrison leading the charge on their base.

After his arrest he had been led into a dark interrogation room and handcuffed to a chair. A man he would soon come to know as Commander Reyes stood across from him, giving him a black-eyed stare. Intimidating didn’t even cover it, Jesse had been shitting his pants waiting to know what was in store for him.

"Now before you say a word, I ain't selling out my friends" Jesse had said, smirking to cover his fear.

Reyes looked surprised, but then smiled and raised his eyebrows.

"So you think those guys are your friends?” he said. “Those cowards spilled everything the moment we cuffed them to that chair you're sitting in" he said.

"Nice trick."

"Nah, no trick vaquero, we already have all the information we needed. The only reason you're here now is that I have a deal for you."

“No deal.”

“Por lo de la mierda _…”_ Reyes squeezed his temples and pulled up a chair, sitting in it and folding his hands.

“Look just shut up and listen. You’re still young, and right now you’re looking at twenty, thirty years in a maximum security prison. You’ll be an old man with a long, white beard before they even consider letting you out. So my deal to you is instead of wasting your life in prison, I will give you a trial period on my Blackwatch team.”

Jesse looked off to the side, not liking much the position he was in. He didn’t like the thought of betraying the Deadlocks, the threat of finding himself in a shallow grave with a bullet in his head was never far away with those guys. Though prison didn’t sound too great either.

“Do I get to sleep on it?” Jesse said, giving Reyes a deadpan stare.

“No, this is your one and only chance. So choose.”

For one moment in the conversation he wasn’t trying to be intimidating, he looked earnest, pleading almost. As it turned out, becoming a secret agent or rotting in prison wasn’t the hardest decision he had ever been forced to make. Though it ended u p being the most important one.

“Okay, okay. Can you get me out of these cuffs now? They hurt like a son of a bitch.”

Reyes had smiled.

*

He was late for his first day of work. Back with the Deadlocks no-one had expected him to be up before noon and Reyes wanted him in the frigging training hall by seven. The other Blackwatch troops were already lined up and looking at him curiously.

“You’re late McCree, fifty push-ups.”

“You’re kiddin’ right?” Jesse said.

Reyes pointed at his stony face, heavy black brows sunk about as far as they would go.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Jesse rolled his eyes and got on the floor, more than willing to show off his physique to the others and even one-arming it a few times. By number fifty he was trying to pretend his arms weren’t shaking.

“Very impressive, now if you’re quite done wasting my time...”

To say Reyes put him through the wringer was an understatement. He worked him so hard that by the end of the day he wished he were in prison just so he wouldn’t have to do another goddamn pullup. Though harsh as he was, Reyes seemed happy, almost excited to give him a tour of their headquarters.

A young woman with brown hair jogged past him faster than his eyes could track, followed by another young woman with blonde hair and - were those angel wings? - hurrying after her. He looked the blonde up and down a few times before she caught him staring.

"Man those little blue uniforms are cute, do I get one?" Jesse asked Reyes with a smirk.

"Very funny, but no” Reyes said “Blackwatch is covert ops, bright blue would attract too much attention. We work from the shadows, using pretty ‘unconventional’ means to get things done.”

There was a hint of fatherly pride in his voice and his chin lifted just a little.

"I like the sound o' this." Jesse said.

"I thought you would vaquero. Though if you fight the way you did when we raided the Deadlock hideout, you’ll get yourself killed. You need to forget some of your old habits.”

Jesse had irked at that, though part of Reyes’ strategy for teaching him seemed to be breaking down his resistance until he did what he was told.

“Come on, I better introduce you to the Strike Commander.”

The first time he saw Strike Commander Jack Morrison outside of combat, he seemed up to his neck in work and worry. He walked down the halls reading through paperwork at the same time. While fighting against him with the other Deadlocks he had been terrifying, even without the combat visor. Though as a person he seemed pretty distracted and working on getting permanent worry lines. He had seemingly forgotten to shave that morning and Jesse saw grey hairs in the scruff.

“Morrison, thought I’d introduce you to our latest recruit.” Reyes said.

“Recruit?” Morrison said, his eyes flicking back and forth between Jesse and Reyes.

“The little Deadlock pendejo.” He jabbed a thumb in Jesse’s direction. “He decided it would be better to join Blackwatch then go to prison.”

“Yes, very good Reyes. His name is?”

“Jesse McCree sir.” Jesse interjected. “Good to meet ya!”

He stuck his hand out and gave Morrison’s hand a hearty shake. He caught Reyes rolling his eyes slightly. Morrison gave him a bemused smile.

“Well met son, just a warning that Reyes is the biggest hardass, all his students hate his guts.”

“And Wonderbread here would rather sit in his office eating Twinkies than actually go out and fight, so you probably won’t have to worry about seeing him in combat again.”

Morrison gave Reyes a punch on the shoulder that looked like it hurt more than a little.

“At ease Reyes, save some of the biting commentary for everyone else.”

Reyes gave him a sarcastic mock-salute and waved for Jesse to follow him.

“Next time you want to suck up to someone so bad I’ll get you one of those curly silly straws.” Reyes said.

“Is it too late to start suckin’ up to you?”

“Oh please, I’m not a cheap date like Morrison. You’ll have to work yourself to the bone to impress me. Besides if you don’t, I could always hand you back over to the authorities.”

Jesse couldn’t explain it. By all rights he should hate this man, hate that he had finally reined him in and forced him to behave himself like a show pony. But that day sparked something in him, he wanted to prove he was good enough for this organization.

“Well then I will work hard, just you watch!”

“Now that’s the kind of attitude I like to see.”

*

Jesse sat a distance from the nearest train station from the farmhouse, waiting for a ride. He had needled Angela until she had given him Reaper’s last known location, which happened to be somewhere in Canada. He planned on taking the Hypertrain as far as it would go and then figuring out the rest from there. If Reaper wanted him dead he knew a fight was coming. He would rather do it on his own terms than be taken by surprise again.

He had been chain-smoking waiting for a train going slow enough for him to hop on, lost in his thoughts. Then he heard light footsteps. Angela had followed him, predictably. She folded her arms and gave him an exasperated look.

“We only just found you, and now you’re leaving again.” she said.

“Yep.”

“It’s going to be even colder in Canada.”

“I have a sweater.”

“What are you thinking Jesse? This is foolishness.”

He sighed, taking another mouthful of cigar smoke.

“He’s not going to stop, Angie. Someone has to stop him.”

“I know I don’t have any right to tell you what to do-“

“But you’re gonna do it anyway, right?”

He mentally smacked himself for snapping at her, it wasn’t like him. He rarely saw Angela angry, but he seemed to inspire that in people a lot.

“I don’t believe you. You left Overwatch without saying a word, not even to me. That _hurt_ Jesse! Did you really think no-one would care?”

“Don’t give me that. You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened!”

“Genji told me about what happened with Gabriel. I know it must have hurt but… I just wish you had at least said goodbye.”

The anger was gone, she folded her arms around herself and looked at him sadly. He looked back and forth between her and the ground a few times. He considered saying sorry when he heard the telltale hum of a train in the distance. Angela heard it too.

"I don't suppose there's anything I can do to change your mind?" she said quietly.

"No. Now are ya coming with me?"

"No. There’s a lot that needs doing, now that Winston and I are trying to get the team back together.”

The train was getting closer.

"Overwatch has become a family to me, it's a patchwork mess of a family, but it's still here. You could still be a part of it, if you want."

McCree looked into her eyes and paused for just a moment. The slightest thought of leaving the station and headed back with the good doctor flickered into his mind. Then it was gone.

"I don’t have a family”

_Not anymore._

"I see. Well, I wish you luck Jesse."

He liked to think he had not caring down to an art, now he found himself caring too much and it terrified him. He stubbed out his cigar with his boot and watched the doctor move away, regret building in him with every second. It was too late to call her back and tell her he didn’t mean what he said. Some things he couldn’t take back, no matter how much he wanted to.

He reached out with his cyber-arm and hooked it onto the slowing train. He had unfinished business to take care of.

*

Reyes told him once that orphans made the best agents. No family to care if he lived or died. It had given him a certain reckless fighting power when he was with the Deadlocks, but once he joined Blackwatch he had been given a bigger family than he had ever dreamed of.

“We have a new agent joining us today.” Reyes said, like a teacher introducing the new kid in class. “Doctor Ziegler says everything’s still a bit new to him so for the love of god, try not to stare.”

“Whatever you say boss.” Jesse said.

He soon found out what Reyes meant. Genji Shimada had once been a handsome young Japanese man. He had been turned into more of a metallic young Japanese man in a fight that nearly took his life. Reyes had to reach over and force him to snap his jaw shut, since it had dropped rudely open.

Luckily Genji didn’t seem offended and greeted him with a little bow.

“Uh, hi. The name’s McCree.” He said, after a jab in the ribs from Reyes’ elbow.

Robots were one thing, but he had never seen a human-robot combo before. Genji wasn’t even the strangest person at Overwatch HQ. Jesse squawked the first time he met Winston, and was soon introduced to the others. Reinhardt Wilhelm gave him a bone-crushing handshake, the fast Limey Lena Oxton he met for barely a minute before she ran off again. Torbjörn Lindholm gruffed at him briefly when Jesse poked his head into his workshop to introduce himself. Ana Amari already had a young daughter but immediately took him under her wing and treated him like her son, and then there was Angela... His idiotic, horny teenage-self had drooled over her all through his training, but he soon came to respect her brilliant mind.

If Ana had been his mother, Gabriel had been the grumpy hardass father he never had. He was there every second of his training, seemingly singling him out as a personal project.  

“I’ve seen you fight, you’re good.” Reyes said one day, as they were headed to the practice range. It had quickly become Jesse’s favorite place, shooting his way through Overwatch’s seemingly bottomless supply of rounds.

“I don’t mean to brag but, they didn’t call me Deadeye McCree for nothing.” Jesse said with a casual shrug.

“If you’d let me finish. I was going to say you’re good, but you can be so much better.”

“I bet I can out-shoot you with my eyes closed.”

Reyes gave him an evil smirk.

“Is that a challenge vaquero? Let’s find out.”

One-hundred training bots set to headshots only, one revolver and two shotguns. McCree gave his Peacekeeper little kiss before taking aim. Reyes rolled his eyes and raised his twin shotguns.

As the starting buzzer blared he felt something he hadn’t since first joining the Deadlocks; wanting to impress someone. He wanted to be good enough for this secret special division. He had been given a second chance by this man and hell, maybe something good could even come of it. He grinned as he got headshot after headshot, popping the little bots heads off like those robot boxing toys.

One hundred training bots, thirty-nine downed by the Peacekeeper, sixty-one blasted in half by Reyes’ twin Hellfire shotguns. He blew smoke off each of them in turn.

“You’ve still got a lot to learn vaquero.”

McCree huffed and turned away, like it didn’t bother him. He was slowly going red in the face.

“Um Commander Reyes, what does ‘vaquero’ mean?”

Reyes looked at him and started to laugh. A rich, booming laugh that transformed his usually stony face.

“It takes you how many weeks to ask me that? It means cowboy.”

“Oh.”

Reyes continued to laugh at his beetroot red face. After their match they sat together in the garden area underneath Morrison’s statue, staring into the sunset.

“You know I’m pretty impressed you made it this far. You work pretty hard for a Deadlock.”

“Ex-Deadlock I’ll thank you very much.” Jesse said, lighting up for a smoke.

“To be honest kid, I’m a little impressed. I thought someone like you would never agree to my deal.”

“I guess maybe I was a little tired of being the bad guy. I was miserable and took it out on everyone else.”

“Gang kids like you always have some sort of troubled home life, so I’m going to make an assumption and say you were an orphan.”

“You’d be right.”

“Look, all that stuff doesn’t matter anymore, not even with the Deadlocks. You’re here now because you chose to be, not because some gutter rat told you they could give you a purpose in life.”

Reyes put a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. Jesse bit into his cigarette and stared hard at the sunset. He hadn’t cried in his life and he wasn’t going to start now.

“I have to get back to work. Blackwatch causes a lot of fallout and that means a lot of paperwork. See you tomorrow.”

“Alright boss.”

As Reyes walked away Jesse sniffed, wiping away some wetness on his cheek.

_Must be the sprinklers or somethin’._

*

The cold winds rushing past his face made Jesse wish he was back in front of the fireplace with Winston and Angela. He wrapped his serape around his lower face and shivered, glad of the ridiculous sweater he had left on under his chest plate. Needing something to pass the time that wasn’t smoking, he fumbled in the back pocket of his pants.

Among the few possessions he kept on his person was a collection of photos of the Overwatch team. Somewhere at the back was the one he was looking for, of him, Reyes and Shimada.

He chuckled at himself for being so grossly sentimental.

_Damn it. For once in my life back then, I was happy. Why’d that bastard have to go and ruin everything?_

He almost put his arm out and let the wind take it, but something stopped him. The life he had chosen was a lonely one, sometimes revisiting memories was all he had. He shoved the photos back in his pocket, then shoved his hands under his armpits.

Man it was cold.

*

Genji appeared at his side silently, after a while working with Blackwatch it had ceased to even surprise him. One minute the man was at the end of the hall, the next he was behind you trying to watch the latest holo-vid from over your shoulder. It made Jesse jump out of his skin the first few months.

“McCree, I have a message for you from Commander Reyes.” Genji said.

“Little busy here.” Jesse said, busy taking apart his gun and cleaning it. He swiped a Q-tip into the firing chamber and eyed it carefully, looking for any specs of dust or grime he might have missed.

“He told me to ask you if you remember the Alamo.”

“The Alamo? Oh for the love of god- REYES!”

Jesse turned and bellowed in the direction of the Commander’s office. He heard his booming laugh in response and could just see his boots propped up on his desk.

Those were the times he enjoyed best, the three of them on downtime in-between missions. Not getting shot at, just enjoying the sense of belonging. Those times were few and far between, especially when the Uprising started. Reyes usually spent it with his feet up on his desk, watching whatever sports game happened to be on.

That day he was interrupted by a Blackwatch agent coming in and giving him a dump-truck sized load of paperwork. The agent scuttled quickly out of the way at the explosion of Spanish swear words.

“Goddamn Morrison, if I have to clean up one more mess he created I’m going to eat my shotguns.” Reyes said. His tirades about the Strike Commander that had been filling ninety percent of their conversations, complete with wild hand gestures.

“You’ll kill yourself or you’ll actually eat them, like with a fork?” Jesse said.

“Knife and fork, with full clips in each.” Genji joined in.

Reyes strolled over and smacked both of them over the back of their heads like unruly kids.

“Can you two take anything seriously?” Reyes saw Jesse open his mouth and raise a finger. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

“C’mon boss. It’s always sour grapes with you.” Jesse said, starting to put his gun back together. “Why can’t ya just learn to be happy with what you’ve got? We do alright down here, even if we don’t get statues. Ya think anyone’s gonna make a statue of me?”

“Yes boss” Genji added “Statues are not important.”

“It’s not just about the statue dumb-dumbs! That gringo gets all the glory while we’re forced to stay in the shadows. Clean-up crew aisle five!”

Jesse thought for a few moments, tapping a spare bullet against his teeth.

“’Gringo’, should I be offended by that?”

“Shut up McCree.”

*

The good times didn’t last.

“Jesse, oh my god Jesse! Wake up!”

It was that feeling when you know you’re hurt, you’re hurt bad, but your body doesn’t process just how badly. He breathed in slowly, like he was sleeping and opened his eyes, or the one he had left. God but he was tired, pieces of jagged rubble poked him in the back and yet his eyelids dragged down.

The doctor’s cold finger’s pressed at his neck, her voice sounded like it was underwater.

_Angela get some gloves to warm those fingers up or somethin’, shit._

“Jesse please open your eyes!”

His head lolled back, he could see smoke rising into an ice-blue sky, then Angela’s achingly concerned face, Genji’s wide red eyes next to her.

“Doctor, his eye it’s-“

“I know Genji just… Jesse you’re going to be alright, just stay awake.”

He struggled to remember what had happened. His gun held six shots, he had run out of flashbangs and the Omnics just kept coming. He had seen a blinding flash of light coming from the sky, an explosion, and then silence. The Omnics didn’t have any sort of tactical airstrike… did they?

“Mein gott! I can’t do anything for his arm. Hold this here please Genji.”

Jesse grunted as something tightened around his arm. Though when he looked at his body he realized he didn’t have much of that arm left. He barely felt anything as he looked at the ragged stump where it ended at the elbow, just a sense of dull surprise, numbed by adrenaline. The rest of his body was a bloody godawful mess. His chest plate had caved in and he struggled to breathe, no doubt he had his ribs crushed. His clothes were torn and bloody and he was struggling to see.

“I’d been meanin’ to get that tattoo covered up anyway” he mumbled, coughing at the effort it took to speak.

“Jesse no, stay awake! Verdammt!”

Once they had scraped what was left of him off the ground and got him home, he had a touchingly large gathering in his hospital room. Lena had gotten everyone to sign a card with a picture of a dog with its head in a cone, saying “get well soon!” in pink letters.

“Whoever designed that thing should be drug into the street n’ shot.” Jesse mumbled.

“We knew you’d hate it!” Lena said brightly.

“What would you have preferred, ‘congratulations on not dying’?” Torbjörn said with a snort. Jesse smiled weakly.

Overwatch had sent him out as a whole man, he had come back with a blown-out eye and a stump instead of an arm. He chose to focus on his friends instead, he never thought anyone would care to bring him dumb cards and balloons and fruit baskets when he got hurt. Even Commander Morrison had taken time out of being bombarded with work to see how he was doing.

“We’ll be working on a replacement for your arm” Angela said gravely. “The eye is going to be a little trickier, but I think you should get your sight back in a few months.” She had been checking in his room almost every hour, on the hour. Even if he was just dozing or eating she was poking her head around the door.

“Good thing you were born now and not the eighteen-hundreds” Torbjörn said, chuckling. “Not that you’d know from your fashion choices.”

“Man if I had a dollar for every cowboy joke y’all made, I wouldn’t have to work this shitty job anymore.”

“Don’t let Gabriel let you hear that my son!” Reinhardt said, the giant man squashed into a standard sized hospital chair. He raised his hand as if to slap him on the shoulder, but thought better of it.

“Alright everyone, visit time is over. He needs to rest.” Angela said.

“We’re all wishing you the best in your recovery sir!” Lena said, giving him a little salute as she clipped out of the room.

“Very much agreed, it’s not the same out there without you!” Rein added, giving him a gentle pat (for him) on his good side. It still made Jesse grunt a little in pain.

“Yes yes, what they said.” Torbjörn added, then waited for them to leave before adding under his breath. “And don’t think I won’t be giving Gabriel an earful. He was out of order sending you into that mess. Jack would never have put one of us in danger like that. I’m going to make sure for certain it won’t happen again!”

Lindholm marched out the room in his usual grumpy manner, leaving Jesse alone with Angela. She had her arms folded around herself and she wouldn’t stop looking at his body. He knew he was a mess. His chest was covered in bruises and lacerations and he felt like he was more gauze and bandages than flesh and blood.

“Stop lookin’ at me like that Angie. I know it looks bad but like you said; a few weeks and I’ll be right as rain.”

He smiled bravely but they both knew it wouldn’t be that simple. Losing a limb meant learning how to move and fight almost from scratch. And his eye… he didn’t even want to think about it. He couldn’t stand looking at the sad look in Angela’s eyes anymore.

“God I could use a cigar.”

“I cannot allow that in here.”

“Aw c’mon, just this once?” he raised his eyebrows hopefully.

She chuckled and briefly ran her hand through his hair. It was a quick, affectionate gesture but it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Get some sleep Jesse, you’ve earned it.”

*

One night he was supposed to be sleeping, but pain and discomfort kept him up. Out of the corner of his one working eye he could see Reyes standing in the door frame. He couldn’t see his features, the light behind him threw his face into shadow, but he had his arms crossed.

“He should’ve been more careful.”

“Reyes this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t sent him into danger.” He heard Captain Amari’s stern voice nearby.

“I thought he could handle it. You’ve seen him fight, he barely ever comes back with a scratch on him and now this happens?”

“Jack wants a full report on this, he’s pointing the finger at you so you’d better be careful.”

“Jack doesn’t know shit. I know Jesse better than any of you, he told me it was a surprise attack and you bet I’m going to believe him.”

“I don’t see why he would have any reason to lie, so then what really happened?”

“It was an accident. I… fuck if he had told me sooner he was in trouble. I would have gone in there myself.”

“Yes, I believe you would have. Please try to not fly off the handle with Jack, from what I hear he’s close to suspending you from active duty.”

Jesse heard barely suppressed Spanish swear words.

“Fine. I see how it is.”

He heard Reyes’ heavy footsteps marching away. He didn’t like the tone in his voice at all.

*

A couple of weeks later Winston and Angela presented him with a fully functioning robot arm and eye, ready to be shoved into him at the earliest convenience. Not only was the robot arm seriously freaking cool, the eye looked indistinguishable from his real one, apart from being a slightly darker shade of brown.

“I thought I would add a little ‘Deadeye McCree’ flair to it.” Angela said. She pressed a button on the stand the eye was resting on and a little red skull flashed in the center of the pupil.

“Guess I’m gonna know how Genji feels.” Jesse said, feeling a little queasy.

“Don’t worry Jesse, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“I trust you to patch me up doc, every time.”

*

Sometime after his surgery, he caught Reyes stomping down the halls soon after his disciplinary with Jack. It was like watching a thunderstorm that had somehow taken human form. He didn’t even register Jesse’s presence. He didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back it was seared into his memory. The one moment where he knew everything was about to be turned on its head.

Reyes confronted him the next day, calling him into his office. He sat like a gargoyle, not moving, with only a small lamp for light.

“Jesse, I want to talk to you.”

He looked at Reyes like he had grown a second head, nearly thirteen years of working with the man and he never referred to him by his first name.

“Uh, yeah boss?”

“About your ‘accident’ you had on the field. It wasn’t the Omnics, it was an unsanctioned airstrike. Morrison nearly got you killed.”

“What? No, it was a Detonator, Morrison wouldn’t-“

“You don’t know Jack like I do kid. On the surface he’s Captain America but it’s all a big front. His decisions are driving Overwatch into the ground, and now the entire world wants my ass on a platter.”

“What are you saying, we throw a mutiny?”

“Jack is the one who left you dying in a pile of rubble, then turned around and blamed _me_ for it! He can’t be allowed to stay in command.”

Jesse nervously took a step backwards, he didn’t like the dark look on Reyes’ face.

“You, me, Shimada and a group of Blackwatch men I’ve already convinced. We force Morrison to hand command over to me, we take back control, and we do what’s right.”

“Reyes, you’re talkin’ about war here! We can work this out, if we just talk to Morrison-“

“The time for talking is over, now are you with me or against me?”

“What are you going to do if I say no, you’ll shoot me in the head?”

Reyes glared at him, his mouth a flat line.

“This jealousy you have over Morrison is turnin’ you into a monster” Jesse continued “This needs to stop right now!”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, you don’t know anything! You would be just another jailbird if I hadn’t-“

“Yeah well I didn’t ask you to do all of that now did I? The way you’re acting I’m startin’ to wish I was rotting in prison right now!”

For a moment Reyes did nothing. Didn’t move, didn’t speak, and just stared at Jesse with his black eyes wide. He knew he had gone too far. Reyes got up and stalked towards him, Jesse braced himself for the verbal beatdown of a lifetime

Instead Reyes hit him.

The punch that landed on his jaw felt like it was going at a hundred miles an hour, the kind that felt like it knocked the lower half of his face clean off. It sent him crashing to the floor and looking up at Reyes, more anger in his eyes that he had ever seen. He felt the sting of tears behind his eyes.

“This is the thanks I get? I taught you everything I knew, I treated you like one of my own!”

"Reyes, I-"

“I _MADE_ YOU!” Reyes roared. Jesse cowered under the force of his anger, then he noticed a silent shadow over them. Genji stood in the door of the office, looking at the scene they had caused. Jesse wondered how much he had heard, his red eyes were wide.

“What are you looking at Shimada?” Reyes growled “Get out of here!”

Once Genji walked silently off, Reyes turned his anger back on Jesse.

“You were never a part of Blackwatch, you have never heard of Blackwatch. Turn in your ID and get out.”

Jesse spat blood onto the tiles and got up. He tossed his badge at Reyes’ feet and took one last look at him. He had already turned around, seemingly to have already forgotten about his existence.

_So that’s it then._

He had stormed out, full of hurt, anger and plain disappointment. Reyes wasn’t the same man he had met as a teenager. He was all the way out of HQ and looking for the fastest ride back to America when the anger faded. He had left behind ten years’ worth of friendships, colleagues and work in just an hour. What happened with Reyes’ war he had no idea. What he had done had been cowardly, selfish. If he had an honorable bone in his body he would have at least stayed to face it with the rest of them.

He had regretted leaving in such a way, but then he heard about the destruction of their Headquarters. He had visited the site once, the statue Reyes had complained about for so long lying broken like a discarded toy soldier.

Reyes and Morrison were dead, so was Captain Amari by all accounts. His home was gone and he would never have another one.

*

Jesse was half-frozen by the time he got there, his clothes doing little to warm him against the freezing wind blowing past him at two-hundred miles an hour. The train had stopped near the border of Alaska. He had to hoof it part of the way, then hitch a lift off a truck driver who just so happened to be going that way. All the while realizing that he really wasn’t built for cold weather.

The town was called Old Crow, a tiny little town in the Yukon district of Canada. Colorful little houses, a lakeside and little else in his eyes, apart from trees and snow. He wondered what a terrorist mastermind would be doing in such a barren place.

His sense of uneasiness only grew as he started looking around, especially once he realized that despite the size of the town, he really had no idea where to start. He saw a man working on a boat near the water and strolled over, casually lighting a cigar.

“Hey uh, excuse me sir. I don’t s’pose you’ve seen any shady characters around these parts have ya?”

It was lame, but he didn’t know what else to do. The man’s eyes bugged out, no doubt wondering what a man with a robot arm dressed like a cowboy was doing in the wastes of Canada.

“You must mean the Ghost of Old Crow. If you really want to know, it’s been spotted in the old boathouse. No-one goes near it, be careful eh?”

“Thank ya kindly.”

Jesse tipped his hat and tried to smile in his usual friendly way, but it turned back into a worried frown. Whatever was waiting for him wasn’t human, he couldn’t shoot smoke. He had no plan.

Buoys on the water clanked and sighed. The lap of the shore would almost be relaxing if it weren’t so _cold._

The boathouse looked more like a small warehouse, broken pieces of wooden fishing boats and old tugs littered the entrance, and the inside was inky black.

“Hullo, is anyone here?” he called out.

Only darkness responded.

_Nobody here, go home cowboy. You’re not supposed to be here._

He took a deep breath and pressed on, flicking on his lighter for a tiny bit of light to navigate by. His breath puffed in the air and mingled with cigar smoke.

_Cold and dark, wonder if this is what dyin’ feels like._

It only got darker the further he went inside, past rooms with old fishing tackle, rope and other bits of assorted crap. The lighter covered everything in an eerie glow, soon he was squinting to see anything. He jumped as he heard a loud bird cry and a flutter of wings. He raised his lighter to the rafters and saw the beady glint of crow eyes watching him.

Then he saw it, a tiny amount of light coming from a small room ahead. His free hand twitched over his revolver. He approached dead slowly, wincing at how loud his revolver seemed when he started to pull it out of his holster, not to mention the rattle of his boots. The light came from computer screens set up all over the room, no lamp or anything.

On the wall was a mess of newspaper clippings, some with bright red ‘X’s painted over them. Somewhere near the bottom was his own wanted poster. Bird droppings covered the desk and Jesse saw a snowy white barn owl perched there.

 _“Oh, it’s you.”_ A voice in the darkness rasped, dripping with resentment. He jumped, only then noticing the figure slumped in a chair in front of the biggest screen. Its clawed hand stroked the owl, like a goddamn Bond villain.

“That some kind o’ voice filter?” Jesse said.

The figure deigned to not respond, instead staring at the screen.

“Are you Gabriel Reyes?”

_“That’s a compelling theory.”_

“Look, I’m sorry for-“

_“I’m not who you think I am. Remorse won’t get you anywhere.”_

“Look me in the eye and tell me. If you’re really Gabriel Reyes, why are you doing this?”

The figure was silent, he quietly scratched the owl under its beak.

_“Do you remember the last thing you said to me, before you abandoned Blackwatch for good?”_

Jesse cringed, he remembered all too well.

_“I was the one who gave you a second chance at life, and a second chance to fuck it up. In all that time, I didn’t hear a single word of gratitude come out of your mouth.”_

“You want me dead because I didn’t say _thank you?”_

“ _I dedicated my life to the cause, to Overwatch, to you, and this is my reward. Spending the rest of my days drifting forgotten, like a ghost.”_

Jesse let out a small growl, clamping his hand hard around his revolver. He had come here with a job to do and nothing Reaper could say was going to stop him.

"I hate to do this old man." Jesse chuckled humorlessly. "Though I guess, you're not a man anymore, are ya?"

 _"Still more of a man than_ **_you_ ** _."_

Jesse spat the stub of his cigar out, bitterness rose in his throat like he had dry-swallowed a tab of aspirin.

Jesse tossed his flashbang and it seemed to phase through Reaper, exploding on his desk and sending his owl flapping and screeching to the rafters. The explosion shattered Reaper’s computer screens and plunged the room into darkness. He materialized standing right in front of Jesse. Without missing a beat he hammered out a full clip into Reaper’s mask, then found himself shooting at smoke again.

Reaper appeared behind him and a claw-like hand grabbed around his throat.

 _"Oh, I am going to enjoy killing you"_ Reaper growled right in his ear.

McCree shoved his elbow backwards into what he hoped was Reaper’s ribs. He honestly didn’t know how to fight him, did he even have a body under that suit?

“Someone has to take you down, seems fittin' it'd be me!” Jesse said, even though he could feel his heartbeat in his throat.

Reaper pulled out a pair of guns that were depressingly familiar and the air was soon thick with bullets.

Jesse rolled towards the door, trying to get some distance while he reloaded, only to find it slam in his face. Reaper chuckled, a death-rattle of a laugh that chilled Jesse to his core. He fumbled loading bullets into his gun, fingers too cold and clumsy. A fist shot out of the darkness and connected with his jaw, sending his gun and the bullets clattering to the floor. Every time he tried to get up, a fist or a foot slammed into his body. Reaper had the perfect opportunity to shoot him in the head, he soon started to feel like a mouse being batted around by a cat. He threw flashbang after flashbang, shouting in frustration as every single one missed. It seemed to work as a distraction at least, and it gave him a small window to pick up a bullet and load it into his Peacekeeper.

_One shot, that’s all I need just one…_

He closed his eye and focused through the one Angela had made him all those years ago. It glowed red in the darkness as he lined up his shot, when Reaper re-materialized a little red skull flashed over his mask.

“It’s high noon you son of a bitch!” Jesse muttered. His hand shook violently as he took aim, and he knew it wasn’t the cold. For a moment it wasn’t the white, evil masked face of Reaper, but the face of his old mentor. Grinning with white teeth at the latest dumb stunt Jesse had pulled and laughing in that rich, booming way. He squeezed his eyes shut and fired, his Deadeye target dissipated.

Reaper grabbed him and pressed one of his guns to his stomach.

The blast tore through his armor, he felt hot buckshot tearing through his insides. Reaper laughed and laughed, the inhuman noise rattling through his head as he fell. He lay with his own hot blood pooling under him.

 _"You never did think of the consequences did you? You act recklessly and expect everything to turn out in your favor."_ Reaper said, casually picking up his beloved sidearm and spinning it in his fingers.  He stomped on it and Jesse looked on with despair as the metal bent beyond repair. He howled with pain as Reaper stomped on his wound, holding him in place while he aimed one of his guns.

It wasn't the first time Jesse had gazed down a gun barrel, but something told him it would be the last. He was out of flashbangs, the wound in his stomach left him immobile. And what seemed worst of all was the feeling that this had been a long time coming, like he was finally paying for his mistake.

_“Adios, vaquero.”_

Jesse closed his eyes. Then the door beside him exploded inwards.

"You look like you need a doctor."

Reaper grunted in confusion and suddenly his attention was on a blinding flash of light off to their side. His attention turned and he fired off both his guns madly. A flurry of bullets glanced off his mask and made him stumble backwards. Through Jesse’s rapidly blurring vision he could swear he could see-

_Angel wings?_

"Get up Jesse!" Mercy shouted, she waved her hand at him and warmth spread through his body. He felt like he had been given a hundred shots of morphine at once and it felt like the wound on his stomach disappeared.

_Angela Ziegler, you really are an angel. No you're more than that, you're a god. You're Elvis._

_“You?! How dare you come here, after all you’ve done!?”_ Reaper shouted at Angela, he fired madly at her, as if he had somehow grown two more of himself and his guns. She stood over Jesse, protecting him as best as she could until Reaper ran out of rounds.

“When I give the word, we run!” she said, shouting over the noise. She flew towards Reaper and twirled her staff. Reaper roared in anger as she knocked his guns out of his hands. He tried to make a grab for her but the good doctor flitted around him as effortlessly as a butterfly. She aimed her pistol point-blank at his face and the mask shattered. Reaper grabbed at his face, or whatever passed as his face. Red eyes, a rotting skull, disintegrating and re-forming so fast eyes couldn’t track it. His smoky form headed for the gaping hole that was once the door, only to come face to face with the big guy.

“Hi there!” Winston said, then roared as he chased after Reaper. Angela slipped an arm around Jesse’s waist and helped him follow. The chase was soon over, black smoke rose into the sky and evaporated into nothing. Winston pushed his glasses back up his nose and snorted.

“Good riddance.”

“You guys… you came for me?” Jesse said, staring at them both in amazement.

“You don’t think we’d let you go alone did you? You’re part of our family whether you like it or not.” Winston said, giving him a grin.

*

Angela and Winston had followed him in the same ship that had brought him to Virginia.

Even though her Valkyrie suit had a failure rate that was barely worth mentioning, she insisted on giving Jesse a check-up. He had taken off his battered and blood-soaked armor, now with a fashionable hole in the middle, and sat shirtless and pouting while Angela wrapped him up once again.

“Looks like you’re clear, the bleeding has nearly stopped. Though you might have to pick out the odd piece of metal the next couple of months.”

Jesse grunted and stared out at the moving scenery, the frozen wastes slowly disappearing behind them.

He harrumphed, feeling like she was waiting for him to shower her in gratitude.

“I let him get to me, that’s why I lost.”

“Did you really expect to be able to go in there and kill him? He was your mentor for years.”

“I honestly don’t know what I expected, half the reason I even went was ‘cause…” Jesse shrugged. “Maybe I just needed to know for myself, that it was really him.”

“Everything has changed so much since the old days, I know sometimes it can be hard to even bear it.”

She saw him shiver and took his serape. It had thankfully managed to avoid getting blood on it. She wrapped it around his bare shoulders to act like a shock blanket.

“Just promise me Jesse, don’t do anything like this again. We’ve lost too many old friends already.”

He gave her an affectionate lopsided smile.

“I guess I can agree to that Angie. Though I can always count on you to patch me up.”

“That you can.”

Angela returned his smile and her cold hands folded around his warm ones. He coughed awkwardly, feeling heat rise to his cheeks.

“Y’know, maybe spending a week or two in Virginia wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” Jesse said, rubbing his neck.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that McCree!” Winston said from the cockpit. “We have an assignment I think you might find quite interesting.”

“Oh Winston, let him rest for a while.” Angela chided gently. “Though he’s not wrong, we’ve been trying to gather new Overwatch agents as well as finding old ones. We thought you might be willing to help.”

“A new Overwatch huh?”

Jesse stared out the window. It could be a new start for him, or history could end up repeating itself. Despite everything, Jesse smiled.

“Whatever happens, happens I guess.”


End file.
